Hewson Swift
The University of Chicago
November 8, 1920 - January 1, 2004
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Scientific Discipline: Cellular and Developmental Biology Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1971)
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Hewson Swift was a pioneer in the field of quantitative electron microscopy. He measured the amount of DNA in different cells and organelles and confirmed that mitochondria and chloroplasts have genomes of their own, which helped to solidify the theory of endosymbiosis. Swift also showed that all somatic cells have the same amount of DNA present, while germ cells have half as much. His research removed any doubt about the genetic role of DNA.
Swift graduated from Swarthmore College in 1942 and earned his MS degree from the University of Iowa in 1945. He worked in Washington, D.C., for the U.S. Department of Agriculture as an entomologist and as a spider curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s U.S. National Museum (later named the Museum of Natural History). He returned to academia and received his PhD in zoology from Columbia University in 1950. In a long career at the University of Chicago, he was appointed full professor in 1971 and chairman of the Biology Department. He chaired the Cellular and Developmental Biology section at the National Academy of Sciences from 1976 to 1979.
